Gavin and Stacey, Britain’s Most Beloved Comedy of the 2000s, Came to An End After 17 Years

It’s a long-running joke that British TV shows are somewhat limited in their episode runs. The average American network comedy gets 26 episodes a season, or 13 or so if it’s ‘prestigious.’ On this side of the pond, even the most rapturously acclaimed series is lucky to get 12 parts spread across as many years. But at least you get closure. The jewel in the crown of the BBC’s festive programming for 2024 was a long-awaited finale that did everything that fans wanted it to. Tidy.

Gavin and Stacey premiered way back in 2007 on BBC Three, a channel initially intended to be the broadcasting power’s attempt to appeal to the young ones. After two seasons, it made the jump to BBC One, the mothership, and the rest is history. This week, it finally came to an end, 17 years later on its 22nd episode. For a lot of Brits, this was The Event of the day. My own mum, who is not a festive person, had one demand for Christmas Day, and that was that we all sat down to watch Gavin and Stacey.

Many beloved British series break out overseas or become nerdy cult favourites, but Gavin and Stacey always felt like a local thing (even though America tried at least three times to remake it.) This was a show about a cultural specificity that was mundane, working-class, and earnest. It was also extremely funny.

For the uninitiated: the show began with Gavin (Matthew Horne), an Essex boy, arranging a meet-up with Stacey (Joanna Page), a Welsh girl from Barry Island, after several months of chats over their work phones. A whirlwind romance ensued, complicated by family drama, cold feet, and the border between England and Wales.

While the title couple was the young lovers that centred the show, the real hook was always the supporting cast. The legendary Alison Steadman played Gavin’s high-strung mother to perfection, with Larry Lamb as his father (their Charles and Camilla sexual roleplay still makes me cackle.) Rob Brydon as Uncle Bryn, an unknowingly camp awkwardness magnet, stole scene after scene. And then there was Smithy and Nessa, Gavin and Stacey’s respective BFFs, played by the show’s creators, James Corden and Ruth Jones. As was expected for a show starring its writers, they got a lot of the best lines but also the more interesting relationship: The blokey best pal forced to grow up versus the enigmatic vixen with the world’s most baffling backstory.

They had sex, immediately regretted it, but then became parents to Neil the Baby. As the seasons went on, it became clear that the pair were made for one another, if they could just get over their mutual stubbornness and Smithy’s penchant for sticking his foot in it. The climax of the 2019 Christmas special - which drew in close to 18.5 million viewers (unheard-of numbers in the current age of TV) - showed Nessa proposing to Smithy. Would he say yes?!

No, obviously. We need a reason to have the finale, after all. The final episode (for real, so Corden and Jones claim) revealed that Smithy was getting married… but to Sonia (Laura Aikman), a gorgeous but shallow woman who seems more excited for the wedding than having a husband. But now’s not the time for complaining, for there’s a stag do to host.

The show has always been generous in how it splits the attention between its ensemble, although it definitely felt like the title pair’s minor subplot about spicing things up in the bedroom fizzled out quickly. Stacey’s mother Gwen got a much-needed arc and personality beyond her ability to make a good cheese omelette, and there was plenty of room for Dawn and Peter, a couple so dangerously miserable that they wouldn’t have been out of place in a Pinter play. I’d watch a spin-off with them if Dawn’s actress, Julia Davis, one of the queens of pitch-black British comedy, wrote it. A lot of the early season’s more, uh, of their time jokes about Smithy’s weight and general ignorance, were mercifully missing.

But everyone knew who this episode was for. Everyone wanted the same thing. The enthusiasm for which audiences craved it was evident in how much the other characters were not so secretly rooting for it. Smithy and Nessa were endgame and people wanted to see that ending. So, the ensuing romantic shenanigans were a bit more rom-com-esque in their outlandishness than the show was used to, although Gavin and Stacey was always a series with one foot firmly within the tropey goodness of that genre. There was an altar confession, a speedy bus race to the port, and a proposal on a boat. What more could you want?

Was it predictable? Sure, but it was a predictable ending 17 years in the making and for a primetime Christmas Day audience. There would have been riots had Nessa said no, especially since Smithy, it could be argued, was the most satisfying arc across those nearly two decades of drama. Yes, shock horror, James Corden gave himself the most emotionally cohesive development. It was certainly evident to many a Brit that the Gavin and Stacey finale was also an opportune moment for Corden to regain some goodwill from his home audience after years in America and earning a reputation as an up-himself pr*ck. Via Smithy, he could be humbled, growing from the immature lad with a petulant streak towards women to a loving father who knew his worth and had finally earned the chance to be Nessa’s plus one (Dave Coaches and John Prescott were tough acts to follow.) One scene, amid Smithy’s hilariously crap stag party, allowed Larry Lamb a chance to monologue about found family that inspired more than a few teardrops. Corden and Jones always loved these characters and it was evident in the show. Their annoyances and cringe were too human to derided.

A lot of British comedy of the 2020s feels like the offspring of Gavin and Stacey, which itself was cut from a very local cloth (think Notting Hill crossed with Abigail’s Party.) Its specificities amidst highly familiar situations and people struck a chord with millions. Everyone had had an experience of culture shock with a nearby neighbour, or meddling in-laws eager to big up their middle-class dreams. Everyone knew a group of lads with nicknames that had long replaced their government names (hello, Chinese Allen.) We’d all had a friend who was more like family. No matter how normal or ‘uninteresting’ your life felt, there would be moments of joy guaranteed. It’s a simple, unfussy, and easily loved show, which is why it became beloved in a way not many shows do.

The finale ended up garnering around 12.3 million viewers, which was more than the other big event on the BBC that day, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (which also slapped.) This sort of watercooler lie TV event is dying, so it’s a testament to how this underdog series evolved into a big deal that it got such attention on Christmas Day. The BBC is probably devastated that they can’t demand 26 more episodes. But hey, that’s what’s so great about British shows. They give you closure.